What happens if you keep drinking and taking recreational drugs into your 50s?

[FortunesFave]

I'm really curious about it....I'm in my late 40s and gave up all that when I was about 19 or 20. Part of the rave culture I certainly did experiment but got it together and went to Uni late...I've never been very into drinking so only have an occasional glass of champagne or a cider with a pub lunch now.

However it's become clear that a lot of our friends who we've had for years are still doing it and for the past 15 years since kids, DH and I have slowly stopped going to their 'dos' when they get off their faces....we used to go and just drink but they'd all be taking MDMA and coke...all perfectly functional during the week by the way...holding down good careers etc. and we found it uncomfortable.

Lately it's got a bit fake and we don't really fit in any more because we barely drink and they still get off their heads at parties. We have other ways of meeting up with them but then they're talking about this weekend or that weekend where they took whatever...and we don't have that to share...not that we want it but the friendships are running their course.

If, like me, you were born in the 70s you'll know that our parents didn't do this sort of thing into their adulthood....so what's going to happen to Generation X as we age? Will the ones who've never stopped just suddenly die of heart attacks young? It's worrying me a bit as some of my friends I really love...but they're still getting faceless and that can't be good when you're 50 plus!

You did say,'It certainly shows a lot of white, middle class privilege as it completes ignores county lines, etc. I guess BLM doesn't in this case.

Yes I did say that because I think this thread reflects the MNs demographic of white & middle class since it's a thread about drugs and very few posters have mentioned the impact of said drugs & the ones that have are largely ignored or told it's not just white people who take drugs 🙄

@Bagamoyo1

I find middle aged people talking about getting wasted and giggling about it really quite pathetic. I’m mid 50s and I have a few contemporaries who do this. In our teens it was rebellious, lying to parents, experiencing things for the first time, so it was worth hearing the stories. In our 20s it was still funny - people doing crazy things when drunk, embarrassing one night stands etc - so it was still worth hearing the stories. In our 30s it happened less, as we all started to have kids, so it was mildly amusing and notable for its rarity. But 40s and 50s - to quote my teenager, it’s too “try hard”. Like they’re desperately trying to cling on to their youth, pretending the stories are still funny, like it’s all still hilariously naughty. There’s nothing cool or edgy about doing something that’s no longer “forbidden”. It just looks sad and pathetic. And that’s before you even consider the health damage and horrible things the drugs trade does.

Absolutely

I would think there are lots of middle aged drug dabblers who keep that side discreetly hidden from the world, just as lots keep the extent of their drinking and the issues around it to themselves.

You have to be some kind of idiot to take recreational drugs in the first place. Even at Uni. Funnily enough, my DD and her various friendship groups (at home AND at uni,) managed to get through their teens, and uni years, without taking any drugs. (And so did me and DH, and our friendship groups...) You can still have a good time without sniffing coke and smoking weed for fuck's sake!

I know what you mean in that there's nothing more irritating than people who think it gives them some sort of "cool" badge.

But if you really back from it, intellectually what you're saying doesn't hang together at all: why should you automatically be an "idiot" because you've taken an informed decision that one particular substance is automatically more dangerous just because its controlled?

You'd have to be more of an "idiot" to assume that alcohol is fine just because its been politically unpalatable ever to ban it.

If you compare the death and social damage created by illegal drugs to legal ones its a drop in the ocean.

Putting aside the ethical points about drug production and distribution which I agree are a major concern and the risks of doing something illegal, there's no real valid argument that illegal drugs are automatically more dangerous than legal ones.

I do get why people find it irritating but if you're really honest with yourselves you have to admit that a lot of this approach is quite irrational.

I know a few. Mainly men tbh.

Yes they still do MDMA, acid, mushroom. Keep a big rock of speed on standby.

Yes, they are all starting to keel over. Slowly but surely.

Heart attack, stroke, cancer and if that doesn't get them it will be the dementia that does. I think when they've been playing the game that long a lot would rather be killed off quickly than end up not being able to look after themselves.

Very repetitive and boring.

So busy chasing some kind of high or out of body experience they let many of the more simple pleasures of life slip away.

Wouldnt want to be stuck in a room with one of them high or on a come down.

Very repetitive and boring and that's just the conversation.

Coke is apparently not as harmful as smoking, alcohol or being obese

Depends on “harmful”.

Rule of thumb in the a&e I worked in was if a fit, healthy male, often under 30, presented with a heart attack the first differential was coke. Studies have shown it induces muscle spasm- in the heart this is effectively a heart attack as the spasm blocks the blood supply.

Smoking/alcohol/obesity cause long term ill health, i suppose it’s a choice between that and sudden death.

Neither are “harmless”.

Until your nose falls off...

People do lose the insides of their noses.

In theory maybe but in practice it's cut with all sorts of shit.

I took recreational drugs (coke, speed, E once but didn't do anything for me) as a student and enjoyed it. I never consciously decided to stop; it happened naturally as I got more into the world of 'proper' work where I needed to turn up in the mornings being more than just upright and sentient. It just didn't fit my lifestyle any more.

A homeless man under a bridge not eating properly and taking that zombie drug thing is a different matter altogether than your friends that like to have a blow out.

It is interesting how different kinds of drugs and lifestyles attract different moral views. There is a lot of people's blood (metaphorically and literally) in coke, for example, not to mention MDMA and its attendant crime and disadvantage, as mentioned by pps. Even though they are frequently used by more affluent, privileged people rather than homeless people.
I wouldn't take these drugs any more, not particularly due to worries about my health but for these moral reasons.

If you're anything like an acquaintance of mine you wreck your marriage and end up getting your 23 year old girlfriend pregnant- much to the delight of your ex wife and 26 year old son .......

Plenty of non drug taking men do that.

We have a few close friends and we dont do that kind of stuff. Why would you when you have kids, its showing them its ok when it certainly isn’t. If you need drugs to have a good time, well you have deeper issues.

I had one school friend who started taking drugs at 16 and I chucked her. Last week at the age of 46 she hanged herself.

That is what happens. You're fucked up.

You can eat healthily and look after your self that way but are prepared to stuff anything down your throat and up your nose?

"Nose falls off. "

Danielle Westbrook.
One.
One celebrity.
Not normal people who took a line of Coke once in 1983.

I'm assuming she is not the only person that has happened to @Oblomov21 otherwise she would have been described as a medical rarity and I don't remember that being said.

I still wonder how people, who take drugs, feel about county lines especially if they have teenagers

@MorriseysGladioli

Plenty of non drug taking men do that.

True - but in this particular case his coke habit has had an impact.

His wife left him due to it and he met his much younger girlfriend as the were both regulars at a particular pub where coke is done openly.

I haven't commented only because I've got nothing to say.
I don't worry or am not concerned about county lines. I know about it. Have talked to ds's about it.

My teens have zero interest in drugs, or alcohol. None of their friends do either. As a year group they are quite uninterested. Quite puritanical and a bit too irritatingly evangelical about it. They are totally into fitness, exercising and protein, and aren't interested.

I would encourage my kids to try everything once.

I've no doubt at all that coke leads to some bad life choices and situations.
As does alcohol (moreso, in my opinion) online activities, porn addiction etc.

Most drug users don’t take drugs like mdma or cocaine every day, in the same way as most people in general don’t get sexual with everyone we feel attracted to or eat junk food every day or drink alcohol whenever it appeals to us. People on the whole are mostly able to moderate most of their actions and desires, when they can’t it’s because something is wrong - eg probably suffering deep pain from adverse events in childhood. Some posters on this thread could use a little humility, grace and compassion.

A more important question might be why do women drink alcohol at all, when the average lifetime risk of breast cancer is higher than one in nine and alcohol increases that. Yet somehow it’s okay for the hard drug versions of alcohol (like gin) to be ever more aggressively marketed at women?

I would encourage my kids to try everything once

With drugs such as mdma or coke though once may be enough. The effects on the body are unpredictable - and I’m not talking about contaminants, the actual drug. You have no idea whether the first time or the 20th will be the time your body reacts differently.

And yes, the same does happen with prescription drugs. Malignant hyperthermia etc are known side effects. Only if you have a prescription you are carefully monitored, no what to look out for, and the benefit of treatment outweighs the risks of the drug. There is no benefit to an illegal drug.

Alcohol is legal as historically it was beneficial to health- weak beer/wine was a far safer option than unsanitised water. We have far more knowledge now, and unlike drugs such as mdma the negative effects are dose related.

I think it's the alcohol that's the problem..I'm part of this generation and did the whole rave culture, a lot, but pretty much gave it up in my twenties prior to trying for kids. If someone offered me a line of coke at a party I'd take it but that's about it nowadays. But everyone in that age group I know still drinks and, mainly the men, in excess. Personally, I find the hangovers unbearable now so usually only have 2 or 3. I've always been a social drinker anyway.

I think continuing to drink like you're in your twenties is what kills people early (and smoking of course)

At least most alcohol doesn’t impact people caught up in illegal trade. So teenagers won’t be impacted by you buying alcohol but that line of coke will possibly involve teenagers in county lines and other vulnerable adults in the supply chain

Except of course the alcohol industry is deliberately manufacturing death, disease and disability.

@MildredPuppy

Im planning to start in my retirement as i didnt do it when young.

[quote ineedaholidaynow]@edenhills county lines are also involved with mdma[/quote]
Yes I'm sure it is, but these days it's easily bought online direct from the chemists that make it too.

If, like me, you were born in the 70s you'll know that our parents didn't do this sort of thing into their adulthood.... I was born in the early 70s and this is not the case!